


"Oh Hear the Call!"

by BobSkeleton



Category: The Mighty Boosh (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Vince talks to animals, happy endings all around, no plot to get in the way of the story, pure fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-19 17:30:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19137376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BobSkeleton/pseuds/BobSkeleton
Summary: A brief look into how Vince and Howard's relationship is defined by their relationships with animals.





	"Oh Hear the Call!"

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out, as always, to blackmountainbones for being a most excellent beta. 
> 
> Title is taken from this quote, from _The Jungle Book_ :  
> “Now Rann the Kite brings home the night   
> That Mang the Bat sets free—   
> The herds are shut in byre and hut   
> For loosed till dawn are we.   
> This is the hour of pride and power,   
> Talon and tush and claw.   
> Oh, hear the call!—  
> Good hunting all That keep the Jungle Law!” 
> 
> -Rudyard Kipling

****_ Childhood _

 

Of course they bond over the chore of feeding the classroom fish. Howard has a natural sense of responsibility, and an interest in biology, and Vince... Vince tells Howard the names of all the fish and their life stories. Howard’s not sure he believes any of this... after all, the blonde imp is new at school  _ and  _ had made up that incredible story about Brian Ferry and bus tickets and monkeys and jungles. 

 

One day Sam Freelan, the bully who pushes Vince around and calls him a girl, dumps the entire container of fish food in the tank. Vince sobs uncontrollably, saying they can’t breathe, he can hear them gasping, they’re scared, get help. Howard runs. Mrs. Zimmerman comes running and together, the three of them pluck out the fish and put them in paper cups of water until the tank can be emptied, cleaned, and refilled. Vince wipes his eyes, sniffles as he talks soothingly to all the fish, and in that moment, Howard believes him. 

* * *

_ Teenagers _

 

“One day, I’ll work here,” Howard informs Vince with a wistful and meaningful look. 

  
“As if, your parents would kill you if you became a zookeeper,” Vince replies. He’s right, the Moons want Howard to follow in the long line of educators from whence he comes. Howard wants nothing less.

 

It’s Saturday, no rain, and Howard had gotten them both in to the Zooniverse with some of his birthday money. He and Vince aren’t in the same year at school anymore. Howard figures he’s almost done with school and will pursue a life of adventure and jazz and drama, beginning with a year of work at the Zooniverse, until he saves up some money and figures out what he wants to do with his life.

 

Vince, who struggles to make the letters stay still on the page long enough to read them, just figures he’ll wait and see what Howard’s going to do, then tag along with him. He charms his teachers with his big blue eyes and flattery, but knows there’s not much point in finishing school. He’s a rock’n’roll star, after all. You don’t need GCSE’s to pull shapes. 

 

“I will, sir. Look, the animals have an affinity for me.” Howard reaches his hand through the bars towards the fox, whose eyes bug as he shrinks to the corner of his enclosure. 

 

“He thinks you look like a rapist,” Vince supplies, eyes rolling. “If anyone’s going to be a zookeeper, it’s me. I can actually talk to animals.”

 

“Oh can you? I don’t think you mentioned,” Howard retorts testily. Vince makes his blood boil, but damned if he can’t imagine life without him. Seeing him getting stroppy, Howard reaches over and fluffs his ridiculous, ever-growing hair. 

 

“Geroff! That’s my livelihood, you know!” Vince retaliates, goes in with both hands outstretched, going for Howard’s middle, only to be cut off with a  _ don't touch me _ . Vince lowers his hands, laughing to himself, smiling up at Howard through lowered eyes, thick eyelashes, and fringe, and Howard knows that when he gets the job at the zoo, Vince will simply have to accompany him. 

* * *

_ The Zootimes _

 

Thunder claps, illuminating the Zooniverse against the black sky. “Vince, did you draw those shutters closed?”

  
“Yeah, Howard. As soon as I was done battening down the ape enclosure.” 

  
“Good man.” Wind howls outside, the sound of branches snapping back and forth in the gale punctuating the conversation within the hut. 

  
“Howard?”

  
“Yes?”

  
“Is it going to be a long storm?”

  
“No one can truly predict the weather, Vince. Even with all our science and magnificent technology, man trembles in the face of Mother Nature, her unpredictable, her ferocity, her--”

 

“Yeah, all right, Howard.” 

 

All speaking pauses for a few minutes, both men listening intently to the cacophony of the tempest outside.

 

“Howard?”   
  


“Yes?”   
  


“Can you pass me that bag of peanuts?”   
  


“What do you need peanuts for? We’ve just eaten.”

 

“We have, but the Hendersons haven’t.” 

 

Howard raises an eyebrow. “...the Hendersons?”   
  


“The squirrels, Howard, from the Zoo.”   
  


Anger pours through Howard just as the rain starts to pour from the sky. “Vince. You can’t just bring squirrels into the house!”   
  


“Well, I already have!” Vince shrugs, casting his eyes downwards as if to hunker down away from Howard’s furious gaze. “The other animals have their enclosures, the Hendersons and their relations have nowhere to go during the storm. They won’t be a bother, Howard, I promise.”   
  


Howard sighs, defeated. He knew he’d lost this argument before it even began. “How many Hendersons are there?”   
  


“A few. Now give us the peanuts.”   
  


“I swear to God, Vince--”   
  


“I can’t turn them out now, hear that wind and thunder and all? It’ll only get worse! They won’t do no harm, I promise.  _ They _ promise.” 

 

Seeing Vince get upset squelches the anger out of Howard. He doesn’t want histrionics or worse, tears. “Okay, little man, okay. Just keep them away from our sleeping bags, yeah?”   
  


“Cheers, Howard.”

 

Vince sets the peanuts down for the eager squirrels, chipmunks, and other assorted rodentia that made their home in the zoo. They crunch quietly, not wanting to disturb that big, small-eyed human. They offer up their thanks quietly to beautiful Vince, though, because he understands them and will keep them safe until the storm had passed.

 

“Howard? The Hendersons say ‘cheers,’ too.”

* * *

_ Dalston _

 

There’d been fewer animals once they moved to the flat. Almost none, in fact. The concrete jungle spares little room for wild things, especially the sort Vince was used to. 

 

Howard thinks maybe that’s why Vince has been so...why Vince has changed. All his life, Vince had been around wild things. He’d  _ been  _ a wild thing. And now he’d been domesticated. Inside the shop, cooped up in the flat like the camels at the Zooniverse in their too-small enclosure, inside cramped clubs and concert halls, bumping up against people. Too many people. Unsavory people.

 

Howard imagines Vince baring his teeth at the ones who get too close, scenting the sensitive necks of ones he’d like to get closer to... Howard tries to change his train of thought before--

 

Too late. 

 

_ Rutting, gnashing, snarling, growling, fighting, struggling, pawing, scenting, rubbing, writhing, marking-- _

 

He wishes just once that  _ he  _ was a wild thing, too, and that  _ together  _ they could be the animals in the London jungle. 

* * *

_ After the City Times _

 

“The bees are all right, Howard,” Vince says, lifting his netting up like a bride does a blusher veil, familiar crooked smile blossoming across his face.

 

“Good!” Howard replies, happily. He takes a thoughtful puff on his pipe, rocks the chair on the porch a little.

 

“They say there’s going to be a good crop of honey coming up, I can’t wait, I love it on pancakes,” Vince chatters on happily. 

 

Things are better here in the country. They bicker and crimp, but with love now and not spite. Howard’s eyes crinkle more from smiles than frowns, the crows feet growing deeper as the years pass. Vince remains ageless as a painting--a little more solid about the middle and shoulders, but his face is lineless and his scalp free of the gray hair that’s been plaguing Howard since his late thirties (though he  _ knows  _ it’s because Vince, vain as ever about his hair, dyes it). Still, this is what he’s always wanted...what they both have always wanted.

 

After everything--the adventures, the struggles, the fights, the moving from place to place, even the apart times--Howard has everything he ever desired: Vince at his side as they grow old, Naboo nearby keeping an eye on them and employing them in his Shaman Supply Delivery Co., and enough animals  (cows, goats, bees, kittens, chickens, and a dog) to keep Vince happily chatting all day, and he, Howard, too busy to let the devil get his idle hands. 

 

Yes, he thinks contentedly. Things are better now.    
  


  
  



End file.
